


We Know The Devil

by DaisyIfYouHave



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: F/F, Gen, Just a quick little lark into what we can and can't do, and broken loves, but also demons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 01:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14321994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyIfYouHave/pseuds/DaisyIfYouHave
Summary: There's something in the forest, and it watches, and it waits, and it whispers, and it knows.





	We Know The Devil

**Author's Note:**

> This was commissioned using the title of the popular game, but I haven't played it! So if you're hoping for "the Senshi in that game universe," this isn't that.

The forest held things, dark things, things that Mina would never mention as the Senshi chattered around the warm campfire, embers crackling against the black of the sky in reds and oranges, miniature pyres burning out tiny sinners with nothing but a popping cry and the grey ash of their momentary lives floating on the wind.

She hadn’t expected this, when she suggested they come out here. Who would? The green and wet of the forest had seemed a place to connect, a place to be, a place to make the team one again, after–

Maybe it was nothing at all. Rei certainly didn’t seem to feel anything. And if Rei didn’t feel it, could it even be real? Maybe it was just in Mina’s mind, lurking and slithering around the trees, calling her name tinged in the accents of the old gods. She looked back at the senshi, all still gathered around the fire, lighting their faces in flashes and shadows.

The shadow never seemed to fall on Usagi. That was the way of it, wasn’t it? No matter what, she never felt the cold of the night. The shadow flitted to the rest of the girls, throwing a sharp hatchet of light and dark across Mako, a dotted patchwork of light and dark spotting Rei. Haruka leaned into the darkness of the night, but the light pursued her, as a grey veil of smoke draped over Hotaru.

Michiru sat in the darkness, only an occasional pop of flame catching the bright teal and blue and green of her eye, and even then it seemed to Mina that it was a mirror and not a vessel, reflecting the light back into the flame, absorbing none of it.

Michiru looked up and caught her eye, and for just a moment, Mina flinched, looking back into the forest, where it lurked.

Mina had done the right thing. That she had been disallowed from doing it was no matter to her. She knew what the right thing had been, and she stood by that.

She turned to walk back to the fire, and the voice curled its smokiness around her, the consonants popping like the forgotten embers.

_Do you know?_

**Yes.**

_And why? Did your heart seek justice or was it hatred?_

**Sometimes they are the same.**

She looked out into the forest again, and for a moment imagined walking into it, dropping the flashlight and stepping out into the cool dark of blue and green and brown and black, oh the black most of all, like slipping into the depth of a pool.

_Yes, that’s true isn’t it? Minak—_

“Mina!” Usagi’s voice pierced through, and Mina thought she heard a far off shriek.. “C’mon! We’re making smores!”

Mina smiled and headed back to the fire. Whatever it was, or wasn’t, could wait. She’d promised Usagi that this was a good idea, and though she’d keep her wits about her, it wasn’t much of a promise to Usagi if she spent the entire time staring into the forest. She was only jumpy. She’d been jumpy the last few months, and that was all. She fiddled with the transformation ring on her finger, the orange stones glinting like the popped embers.

She saw enemies around every corner, even in the roundness of the trees.

__

Michiru looked into the fire, wondering what Rei ever saw in it. It was all random to her, each flit of flame rising and collapsing from moment to moment, impossible to follow. It must be like reading an ee cummings poem, though perhaps less pretentious.

She was one to talk, her own senseless Eliot sea rising and falling within her. Yes, they were more the same than they were not, their power strong and savior and destructive and villain. Water could bring life, and it could deal death in a moment. Fire warmed and burned in the same measure.

_And salt water, my dear. Who is nourished by salt water?_

**Ah, hello.**

Michiru waved off the voice, looking at Haruka, sitting next to her but only by virtue of familiarity, far enough from her that Michiru’s hand could not reach, an impossible chasm between them. Usagi’s laughter filled the darkness of the sky and the sea rose in Michiru, flushing her eyes full of salt and fury.

_So easy for her to laugh. The flame is warm, and the sea is cold._

Michiru looked off into the forest, wondering if Rei could feel it too, wondering if it was something that slid past the other girls as smoothly as it slid into her, like a knife between her ribs, cold steel whispering between the bones. It knows us, she desperately wished to tell her. It knows us, and we are hunted. Can’t you feel it prowling? Can’t you feel it staring?

She looked up at Rei, who sat across from her, separated from her by the burning flame. Her gaze was unmet, Rei simply staring deeper into the fire as if she could control it, the way Mars had in days of old, as if she could lash out the tendrils of her own burning rage and consume with them. Reading the sigils it splayed across the wood, glowing red into them.

But Michiru saw nothing, simply the shifting tissue paper shades overlapping, the color deepening as they did so, like wandering into the sea, the colors changing slowly and then all at once as the shelf fell out from the coast.

Usagi accidentally kicked over her cup as Mina came to sit, the water rising and attacking the flames.

Steam.

Mina eyed her warily as she came to sit, and if her sword had been on her, her hand would have rested at its hilt. It was, truthfully, in the only way that mattered, her blue eyes sharp and ready. Michiru did not break her gaze, and the two stared at each other for a moment.

_Do you wonder what is there?_

**I don’t have to wonder.**

But there was something more, too, something behind what had laid in Mina’s eyes these past weeks. A knowing. Mina must feel its eyes upon them, the predator that waited. That hungered for blood. Maybe Mina could feel it because she had that hunger too, that lust to lick the blood from her sword and taste the steel and cooper and the salt most of all.

Or maybe she was simply the commander, and made it her business to know.

Haruka. She looked over at Haruka, who stared dispassionately at the marshmallow at the end of her stick, darkening in the flame.

**Leave her be.**

_She does not want your protection._

**I have the luxury of no longer caring what she wants.**

_You may die, my succulent._

**I have done much worse.**

___

Rei would have said that she enjoyed the normal amount of sleep, at least on average, and when she did not sleep she would have said it was of her own volition. Rei would have said a lot of things were of her own volition, if only to prove that she was the only master of her own life.

But tonight she would concede that she had not wished to stay awake, and yet there was no being still. The darkness was palpable around her, suffocating, even next to the small lantern in the tent she shared with Usagi and Mako.

They slept. They slept as deep as the night, as if this was an ordinary place.

The fire had not told her, lying too quiet to be coincidence. Since she was a child, the fire had spoken to her, even when it was only tiny trivialities like what the special might be at the cafe by her house the next day, or that the Academy would get new uniforms next year, or what Usagi might cry about next. It was never silent, not to her. The fire and she spoke as old friends.  

But then again, she wasn’t speaking much to old friends anymore.

Rei knew better. The fire was not being quiet, it was being silenced. But she could not place it, this strangeness she felt. There had been nothing but strangeness, this past few months, an uneasy peace resting over the senshi because Usagi wished it there, and Usagi was the princess, and the girl who would be queen, and so it rested like a fog, waiting to be broken by the slightest blade of light and heat.

Rei could still hear Usagi cry out, the same tone and timbre and words from that day.

_“You can’t!” Usagi wrapped her arms around Michiru, who stayed unmoving as a statue, refusing to reflect fear or sadness. “Minako, you can’t do this!”_

_Haruka stood, her arms crossed, staring at Michiru with hatred and disgust, but biting her lip so hard a split of blood began to gently peer around the edge._

_Mina did not lower her sword. “Princess, move.”_

_“No!” She cried out like an animal, “Rei! She’s your friend! Haruka!”_

It had made her ache. But it hadn’t made her move. Mina, as much as Rei hated to say it, had been right. They were friends, in a sense, but they were a military unit also, and that day had been a bitter reminder of that. Friendship only goes so far when duty is on the line.

And so perhaps that was all it was, the uneasy heaviness that had never fallen upon them in all the years previous, the strangeness of unrest among the Senshi. It was a change, and that was all, there was nothing in these woods that could not be explained.

She reached for her bag, and touched the ofuda inside, the caress of the familiar texture reassuring. If there was something, Rei would be ready. She narrowed her eyes at the side of the tent, aiming her glare into the thickness of trees and fear she knew to be beyond it, and tightened her grip on the ofuda.

She was ready now.

_Michiru walked up alongside her, as Rei turned her face away. Usagi could say whatever she wanted. She could make them all soldiers, but not friends._

_“It’s very easy to judge when your duty lines up with your desire, I imagine.” She said to the air, before walking away alone on the path, as the rest of the senshi clustered into small groups._

Rei shook her head and brought her bag next to her in the tent.

She didn’t need the fire. She was the fire.

___

A scream ripped the night, high and shrill and tearing, inhuman and feral. Haruka and Mina nearly tripped over each other as they ran out of the tent, transforming as they went out into the starless night.

Nothing. Just the inky blackness, the light from the lantern like a firefly against it. Hotaru moved to where the girls had sat around the fire, her glaive raised and ready, Pluto at her back, the girls creeping together behind them in a group somewhere between a line and a cluster.

“Form up, for fuck’s sake!” Mina barked and shook her head. She turned back and looked at Michiru. “You don’t get to be behind me.”

Michiru shrugged and moved to the front, not even separating her mirror into dagger and buckler, as if it hardly mattered if she were attacked or not. Perhaps it didn’t, not anymore.She slid past Hotaru, neither creeping nor cautious, but marched over to where they had sat, stopping next  to the fire pit.  

“Well.” She said disinterestedly.

The chairs were overturned, large gashes in the backs and seats of them, strewn around the campfire, the frames of a few bent in places like broken legs. Usagi’s smores cooler had been broken open, the marshmallows strewn across the fire pit, melted against the embers that had not fully cooled, even in these dark hours, and now formed a sickly-sweet and bubbling crust over them. The chocolate was shattered into rough pieces, the graham crackers ground into powder. Haruka’s beer bottle lay shattered against the rocks, the dark brown of it glittering and sharp in the meager light of the lantern.

“I suppose we shall have to content ourselves with stumps and rocks.” Michiru surveyed the remains of what had been their cozy campfire.

Mina moved to the pit, and looked it over quickly, making a mental note of the placement of each broken shard, each crumb, a chill coming over her as she did so, something in the back of her mind, laughing, just a laughing black hole with bright white fangs, sharper than icicles, its gaping maw open with its deep, throaty laughter, tongue dark red against the endless black and white.

“Bears.” She said, loud enough for Usagi to hear.

“Yes, I’m almost certain that’s correct.” Michiru said, quickly and quietly and with her signature sharp edge.

Mina shot her a look. “We should have put up the cooler.”

“Yes,” Michiru looked back at her, their eyes meeting in that battle yet again, “One should not leave sweet things out where they might be eaten.”

Mina was the first to break the stare, turning back to Usagi and dropping her transformation in what she hoped was a carefree way, shaking her long blonde hair loose.

“Usagi, you have to be more careful about this stuff.”

“I’m sorry, Mina,” Usagi peered sadly, on tiptoe over Rei’s shoulder, at what had been her campfire, “I hope the bears liked it, though.”

Rei touched Usagi’s hand, not looking at her, her voice slightly far away. “We’ve got the rest of the food in the cooler. I might at least have more chocolate there,” Usagi’s hand tightened on her, and she shook her head, her voice growing into a familiar and reassuring scold, “But you have to learn to take care of things, Usagi, I can’t be here to clean up after you all the time!”

“Rei, you’re so. Mean.” She pouted, but then grinned, the spell dropped from the grim campsite, “Let’s go back to bed.” She tugged at Rei’s hand.

The girls began to shrug off their transformations and shuffle back to their tents, the momentary excitement broken. Only Mina and Michiru stayed by the fire, Mina making a show of picking up the bent and clawed chairs as the group dissipated.

Michiru flipped her hair over her shoulder and let her transformation fall in one graceful motion. “It has not escaped my notice that there seem to be a number of bears in these woods.”

“Hmm.” Mina did not look at her, but neither did she remove her transformation.

“It does not seem to have escaped yours, either.” She looked at Mina pointedly.

“Hm.”

Michiru turned away from the fire pit and started toward the tents. “Hate me all you like, Commander, but so long as I am alive, you may as well make use of my gifts. Bonne nuit, I suppose.”

She wandered into the darkness, into her lone tent at the far edge of the campsite, expensive but claustrophobically small, and Mina watched her as she walked into the night, until the pale slip of her pink nightshirt slid into the tent and disappeared.

She sighed, alone, finally, as alone as one could get here in these woods. Michiru was many things, but she wasn’t the psychic brick that so many of the other senshi were, and if she said there was something in these woods, and if Mina felt something in these woods, there would have to be.

They’d leave in the morning.

_Oh, we can’t do that. This was an important vacation. A bonding experience that you all need. Training, even._

**Is this me?**

_Who else would it be?_

—-

Rei set her bag next to her as Usagi chattered on happily about how she was sure she left a bag of marshmallows in the car, too, and she didn’t have any more graham crackers, but she was sure if they just squeezed bread together really hard, you could make a pocket or something, and that would be pretty good, oh, and she had peanut butter too, and she was sure that a toasted chocolate peanut butter sandwich would be really good, and…

“I’ll talk to Haruka about it in the morning, she’ll really like it I think, and I think she brought some cookie butter, so that would make it even more like a s’more! So this isn’t even a big deal, Mako’s so strong she can find rocks for us to sit on and–” She put her hands on her hips and scowled at Rei, “Are you even listening?”

Rei’s head jerked over to Usagi and away from the signs in the flame of her mind. “I can’t NOT listen, you’ve been talking for the last 20 minutes about the damn s’mores.”

There was a scratching at the side of the tent, and Mako drew her arms around Usagi as grabbed for the ofuda in her bag. She began to chant when the tent unzipped.

Mina let out a loud laugh. “Gotcha! Gonna exorcise me, Rei?”

Rei gritted her teeth. “Someone should.”

Usagi grinned at broke free of Mako, who scowled disapprovingly at Mina but did not admit she’d scared her. “Mina! Are you coming to sleep with us tonight?”

“And leave tall, blonde, and moody alone? Afraid not, she’d probably try to seduce the bear for companionship.” She sat down next to Rei. “No, I came here to,” she pulled out a small wildflower, “invite Miss Hino out for a moonlit stroll.”

“It’s a new moon, Mina.” Mako tossed a pillow at her.

She caught it handily. “Don’t bother me with details, Kino.” She turned to Mako. “Do you know, in German, Kino is a movie theater? Do you ever think about that Mako, like, you’d go to Germany and introduce yourself as Mako Movie Theater.” She turned back to Rei. “I’m a very worldly woman, Rei, and I’d like to show you all of my…foreign tongues.”

Usagi giggled. The only thing that delighted her more than her friends was the idea of them marrying each other, and with the dissolution of Haruka and Michiru’s relationship, she’d been a bit at sea and needing a couple to cheer for.

“Rei, go!” She pushed her toward Mina, and Rei’s eyebrows furrowed like two dark and angry caterpillars at war.

She glared over at Mina, and Mina’s face dropped, just for a flash of a second, and her eyes widened, full of expectation, signaling to Rei and hoping she would hear. Rei tossed her hair, and gave an annoyed huff.

“Fine. But just for a minute, I swear to god, if you try anything, Mina.” She ambled toward the tent door.

“Oh, I won’t try. I’ll just succeed.” She moved quickly out the tent flap behind Rei, and threw her arm over her shoulder, near yelling into the night, “now stick close to me Rei! The night is dark and treacherous and only I can protect the fair maiden,” they began to wander out to the edge of the campsite, where trees clustered in close, listening in.on their conversation.

Mina stopped talking, and they stood in the darkness a moment, the only sound their breath against the dead stillness of the night, as if they were part of a painting, the only living and real thing in the tableau.

“What’s going on?” Mina’s voice did not break the quiet, merely fluttered against it like a moth against the window. “Here.”

Rei did not look at her. The words trembled on the end of her tongue, the horrible admission that she did not know, could not see, that she was no help at all. All she knew was that it was wrong.

“The fire?” Mina did not make her say anything, reading the lines of her body as she always had, the way Usagi loved and Rei hated, hated the way you can only hate something you desire and cannot have.

Rei shook her head. “It’s so quiet here.”

Mina nodded. “Maybe an enemy. We should–” Mina stopped as if listening to something, “I guess it’ll just get us back home, too.”

Rei studied her. Rei saw the future, at least the one that was close in, and she felt the vibrations of evil, and she read these signs and portents with endless skill. But Mina had always remained cloaked in mystery for her, able to change and move her expressions from moment to moment with no bearing on whatever lay beneath them. She darted in the shadows, Mina did.

“So what are you going to do?” Rei put her hands on her hips. “Just sit here and wait?”

“Yeah, Rei, I thought I’d just hang Usagi from a tree and ring a dinner bell, see what happens.” She shook her head. “I’ll lead an exploration party in the morning. You and some of the others will stay and protect Usagi.”

Rei touched her elbow. “Michiru?” She asked, hating her name as it wriggled out of her mouth, hoping it was enough for Mina to know.

She glanced at Rei and nodded. “She feels something.”

Rei threw her shoulders back, offended that she, the superior soldier, was being kept out while Michiru could sense it, could hear whatever the forest had to say. There was a part of her that felt it couldn’t be true. She must be lying. Michiru was good at lies, whatever else was true.

“Did she say that?”

“In her sea-snakey way, yeah.”

Rei gritted her teeth and glowered at the forest, burning her mind toward it, but the fire was just swallowed up by the impenetrable wall of tree and moss and the endless, endless darkness. Not a single word whispered out, even the wind dead and still in the night.

A single angry huff was all Rei could manage.

__

Michiru pulled over the box of wine, the plastic-slicked cardboard and screw cap as sure a sign as anything to her of how far she had fallen. She unscrewed the cap and took a deep drink of the wine, not caring that even the best of the boxed wine was beneath her. Or had been. Not much felt beneath her now, not even the dirt below her tent.

She took the small framed photo out of her bag, and touched the edge of it as if it afraid it might break if she handled it too roughly. Haruka had been so handsome that day, and so happy. It had brought the most beautiful light to her face, the one that Michiru cherished so deeply. She had been happy too, and saw the joy and comfort in her eyes, could still feel the warmth and softness of Haruka’s arm around her.

She still wore her ring. Haruka did not, Michiru had noticed, leaving only the pale white scar of where their love had been. It would fade, in time, as all things do, and her hand would be whole again until she put another ring on it, which Michiru did not doubt she would.

It didn’t matter. She would do it over again.

_Of course you would._

**If your only aim is to tell me the things I already know, the tedium in this forest must be truly exceptional.**

She took another drink of the wine. Whatever it was that lurked in the woods, a ghost or a demon or one of the many things Michiru did not believe in but was beholden to, she was tired of it. Tired of the prowling and the waiting.

Or perhaps that was the wine talking. Either way, it was hardly relevant. She heard a sound, a crackling of twigs against the night, and she snapped to attention. She may not have been a good soldier in all ways, but Mina could never fault her vigilance. She slipped her shoes on and went out into the night, looking for the source.

She never thought to call out to the others.

The heaviness of the night surrounded her, something comforting in the way it oppressed her, the way it seemed to sentence her and shame her. She deserved it, and she did not care that she deserved it. She would carry it on her back all her life, her scarlet letter, and she took a perverse pride in that.

She imagined as she walked, meeting with the enemy lurking outside the campsite. She imagined how she would fight nobly. How she would sacrifice herself for the good of the senshi. For the good of the princess. How Haruka and the others would come across her, bleeding. How she would die.

_Haruka would hold you as you died._

**Yes, she would.**

_And cry._

**She’d ask my forgiveness.**

_You’d die before you could give it._

A smile crept across Michiru’s face.

Her steps were silent, even against the needles and leaves of the forest floor, as she followed the creaking and cracking of her would-be murderer and savior. She pursued her death as if pursuing a lover, never moving her hand to her transformation ring, flush and breathless with the exultant joy of finding her absolution in blood.

She tucked around a tree, her eyes wide with desire.

A fluff of ash blonde hair and slate grey eyes, hard as the stone they mocked, met her.

“I heard a noise,” Michiru stood straight, “I believed it might be dangerous.”

“It’s just me.”

They stood across from each other, two sharpshooting cowboys waiting for the other to draw.

Michiru nodded. “There are bears, you know. You ought not to be alone.”

Haruka squared her shoulders. “You came out here alone.”

“Recent history would suggest your displeasure with the things I choose to do, and a desire not to mimic them.”

Haruka gave a sharp exhale of breath. “Fuck off, Michiru.” She shook her head and turned away. “I’m going back to camp. I just needed a walk.”

“Haruka!” The name flew from her mouth before she could stop it, its easy and beautiful pattern woven into the very fabric of her tongue, “These woods. I believe there is some danger. I will walk back with you,” she walked toward her, “you need not speak to me.”

Haruka kept walking, and called to Michiru behind her, “I don’t want you to fucking protect me, Michiru!”

The name, said with such vitriol, like poison dripping off a fang, stung, and Michiru gave a shuddering breath as it coursed through her. She followed Haruka, hardly caring what she wanted, her own steps swift and silent as Haruka clomped through the underbrush, back toward camp. There was a sound behind her, Michiru noted, but Haruka kept moving, as if she didn’t notice.

It was likely she didn’t. Haruka’s hearing had always proven poor, both in this world and the one just beyond it. The diaphanous veil that rested between worlds had never kept Michiru from hearing, from seeing, the way things might be, but it may as well have been a brick wall to Haruka, and Michiru was not entirely sure which plane of existence this creature in pursuit rested upon.  

_It’ll get her._

**Not before it meets with me.**

She kept her hand at the transformation ring they both still wore, the one that signified an arranged marriage in which Michiru had no say, one that had she had been born to as surely as if she had been born a princess on that desolate rock at the edge of space thousands upon thousands of years ago. The sound came in small whispers, breaths like waves crashing against the rocks of the night, following them endlessly on the broken shore of their love.

Then, it stopped.

Michiru looked behind her, just for a moment, and saw a glint like the sun hitting salt on a clear day, in the dark of the trees, and she stopped.

“There, there’s no bears, now leave me the fuck alone.” Haruka yelled from the twenty feet or so ahead of Michiru she was, clomping with on great crash into the open clearing of the campsite.

Michiru turned away from the creature that had followed, hoping it was a fang, that her wish for death in the dark rotting wet of the night could still be answered. As if any force in this world or beyond had ever answered her call, whatever it was.

“Pardon me for not wishing your death, or harm.” She looked to Haruka, the lantern light just hitting the pale gold of her hair.

Haruka looked at her, their eyes meeting for the first time in months. “Michiru…”

_“Michiru…” She looked at Michiru, her eyes filled with sadness and resignation, and oh so much pain, “How could you?”_

_“I will not apologize.” Michiru kept her eyes locked deep into Haruka’s._

_“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” Mina snapped, hand on the hilt of her sword, “I can’t do shit with I’m sorry.”_

_“Well,” Michiru’s voice did not waver, “I am not. I love you.”_

_Haruka looked away, wiping a tear. “Just take her.”_

“You’re so fucking selfish, Michiru.” She walked away tossing her hair as she headed into the camp, and left Michiru to the quiet isolation of her tent on the edge.

_Yes. Yo–_

**I am.**

___

Mina did not often see the sun come up, owing to the late night she put in as a senshi, her own personal predilections, and a thousand other reasons, but on this day, in the cool of that preternatural border between the day and the morning, Minako Aino woke up, not in the slow and sleepy way so many girls her age did, and the way she might if she were still that girl, but in the harsh cracking whip of awareness that marked the soldier.

Watched. They were being watched.

She looked next to her, Haruka’s arm spread across her pillow, touching her shoulder, just so she could touch someone, just so she could remember what it was to be near. Silence. There was nothing, the too-quiet nothing of being smothered. Quiet as the grave, an old novel might have said, and she felt a prickle on the back of her neck.

She slipped quietly out of the sleeping bag and put on her shoes, walking into the grey of nearly-not-night. She could feel the sun on the horizon more than see it, but it offered no sign of hope. There was something here, something that had found them, and something that would follow them home.

_We have been here._

**We, huh?**

_She is a traitor, you know._

**You don’t have to tell me.**

_There are angels and devils in the world, Minako Aino._

It whispered her name like a lover, too intimate and too close.

_There is a devil in your midst. You know her._

**Oh yeah?**

_You know her. She showed her hand. You know her. She would do anything. You know–_

_“You know me,” Michiru looked at each of the senshi, as they each held a slip of paper, putting it into the hat before them wordlessly, “I am a slave to my emotions as much as Usagi is hers.”_

_“Oh shut the fuck up, Neptune.” Mina grabbed the hat, and took a handful of paper out of it. She looked back at the senshi. “Thank you all for taking part in your duty.”_

_She looked down at the first slip of paper, a dark black spot bleeding through it, the ink in it written so hard it stained the edge of Mina’s fingers. “One.” Another. “Two.” She took out another slip of paper, this one bright white. “There’s one for the other side.”_

_Michiru looked up at the senshi, but none of them looked at her directly._

_“Third spot. Four. Five.”_

_Michiru laughed darkly. “Not a one of you will sentence me and meet my face.”_

_MIna let a pure white slip of paper flutter to the ground. “Two for your side.” she tossed aside the hat. “Doesn’t even matter what the last slip says, you know that. “_

_“What an interesting riddle to leave. I do like a bit of ambiguity in a story.” She sighed. “Very well, let’s get on with it, I suppose.”_

_Mina grabbed her shoulder and hissed, hot and low and angry in her ear. “I’m not having Haruka do it for her sake, not yours. I wish she had the strength to.”_

_“Be kind,” Michiru breathed, “aim for my heart.”_

The sun began to pull its first lines of unreadable script across the sky, cutting through the darkness like a sword. The voice was right. There was a devil among them. There had been a devil among them this entire time, protected by angels. Usagi was good and Usagi was light and Usagi had been wrong.

No. She shook her head. It was whatever was here in the woods.

Had it been there, this whole time, though? She thought back to Rei’s shrine, too all of them sitting there around the table, and she thought, just for a moment, she could feel the slow and steady breathing of the thing, the heartbeat pulsing through the walls, watching and waiting, waiting for them to be just exposed enough.

And then we all got dragged out to the woods.

That had been Usagi, but it had been Mina, too, like all decisions between them, the princess and the general, two very different sides of a coin constantly flipping in the air, fighting for direction.

_You protect Usagi. That’s all you’ve ever tried to do._

**What do you know about it?**

_There are angels in these woods, too. Look out, Mina. Loo–_

“What do you hear?” That voice, slim and sharp as a dagger, behind her.

She whirled around, hand to her transformation ring. “What are you doing up?”

Michiru cocked her head, seemingly a bit amused. “I don’t sleep much, I never have. Certainly no cause to be so skittish.”

The amusement on her face flushed anger to Mina’s cheeks. “I’m not. I”

“You would have no cause to be.” Michiru folded her arms daintily. “What were you listening to?” she paused a moment. “Was it the bears?”

The words almost escaped Mina’s mouth, how yes, she could hear them to, how she wondered about the things they said, and how long they had been there, how she felt them watching, always watching, and did Michiru know them? But she thought of what they said, and what Michiru had done. That might have been the least she could do.

Mina was a talented soldier, but she was alone, and Michiru’s back might be up against the wall.

There was a time when she’d thought of Michiru as just another soldier, whatever her mood. But that was before. Sometimes even Mina thought she took it too much to heart, that it had only been the choice of a moment.

But in those moments, we find out who we are.

“No. Just crickets. But speaking of,” she moved to the side, but did not turn her back, “I have to get whatever they didn’t. Everyone’ll be up in a few hours.” Mina walked off to the campsite, hitting the side of her tent to wake Haruka as she passed, and went down the path to gather what was left of their food, for breakfast.

It just might be the most important meal of the day.

__

Michiru watched her leave, her back to the woods in defiance against whatever it was that watching and waited. Or maybe it wasn’t even defiance anymore. Maybe it was sense. Maybe it was realizing where the dagger in her back was going to come from.

_They will never let you live among them._

**I can hardly fault them for that.**

_Why stay?_

**It is the duty to which I was born. The duty to which I will die.**

She looked back into the campsite, quiet still in sleep, the only sound a ruffle coming from Mina’s tent. The calm that lay over the place was the calm of a battlefield after the war, the calm of the dead, the ripped and tattered chairs like corpses where the fire pit had been, the scattered rocks of it like bombs still waiting to explode and bring their violence anew.

That quiet, disorganized circle.

_“Sailor Neptune, you are charged with insubordination, dereliction of duty, cowardice–”_

_A weak chuff, even on her knees. “I believe we are both aware cowardice was not at issue.”_

_Haruka shook her head, her face a mask of sheer hurt and confusion, and for a moment it looked like she might turn away. But then she looked to Usagi, and that hurt turned to anger, and Michiru’s heart quietly broke as Haruka looked back to her with hate._

_“And treason against the Princess.”_

_Hate is just a love disappointed, Michiru had heard. She hoped that were true, when Haruka thought on her later._

_Mina unsheathed her sword. “For these crimes, you have been sentenced to death. Do you have any parting thoughts I should know about?”_

_Michiru looked at them. “Don’t any of your dare to avert your eyes.” She looked up at Mina. ‘You look me in the eye when you do it. Sailor Venus.”_

_“Not a problem. Sailor Neptune.” Mina stared at her hard as she brought back the sword._

_There was a scream._

A tent flap unzipped, and Michiru’s head moved swiftly as an asp’s to follow the sound. Haruka stretched to her full height with a groan, her back to Michiru, her hair rumpled and soft and begging to be touched, a strip of skin across her back from where the sweater was too short for her long body when she moved. Michiru could remember the smell of her in the morning, the warm soft smell with that hint of oil that never went away, even when she scrubbed. She had teased Haruka that it simply came out of her pores now.

_She will never love you again, my poor, sad, dear._

Michiru did not realize she had been smiling at the memory until she stopped.

Haruka turned and saw her, and her shoulders fell. She looked at Michiru for a moment with a look of dispassionate boredom, then shrugged and turned away, shuffling toward the fire pit where the remains of their gathering still remained, glancing back at Michiru with suspicion.

Michiru touched her wedding ring and twisted it around her finger.

_**You could take it off. You could take them both off.** _

**Stop that.**

_It was what you would have thought, if you allowed yourself._

Michiru looked back into the dark green of the forest, even the early morning light seemingly being swallowed by it, and it felt like the sea, when she stared as it lapped at her feet. It felt like the silk sheets of the hotel where they had spent their honeymoon, never sampling the fine wines and foods the region was known for, sampling other delights. It felt like that wine bar where she and Rei had laughed.

It felt like home.

__

Usagi chattered happily as the pancakes sizzled on the griddle, Mako kneeling beside the fire and keeping her close watch over them. There were a few rocks they’d found, here and there, and some stumps that Haruka and Mako had cut from fallen trees in the woods, while Rei and Ami rebuilt the fire ring.

Mina had been off by herself, mostly, watching as if she could see something just beyond the ring of trees that surrounded the campsite. Rei hated it. She hated the quiet, the way nothing appeared to her, and how that silent felt more ominous and more hateful than any whispering in the trees, than any torn apart chairs.

It was the feeling of finding your phone line cut, of being separated from the world.

It was the quietness of waiting for something to strike.

Michiru sat down beside her, and Rei felt her body tighten. There was only her between Michiru and Usagi.

“Would you prefer I chose another spot?” She did not look over at Rei.

She noticed. Of course she noticed. Michiru could hear whatever it was in these woods, and that seemed a particular cruelty to Rei, that she, who had only used any power she had been given toward her duty, had been muzzled, and Michiru, who had only ever used her powers for herself, ran free.

She kept waiting for the anger to fade, for that log to finish burning, for it to all turn to ash and blow away in the forgiveness of the wind. There were times she found herself reaching to the phone to say something to Michiru, only to draw her hand away as if it had been bit.

Rei tried to look careless. “I don’t care what you–”

There was a scream from the woods, and the senshi jumped to their feet, rings twisted and transformations instant, surrounding Usagi, who froze for a moment, untransformed.

“Usagi, come on!” Rei shook her, trying to mask her fear in anger, the familiar skin she slipped on.

Usagi obediently touched the ring at her hand, the light surrounding her as she became the princess who was a soldier, although not much of one, depending on who you asked.

Haruka whipped her sword around, looking for a creature to fight, looking for somewhere to direct her rage, finding only the echoes of anger in the trees. Rei looked over at Michiru, who watched Haruka, unwavering. Some things never changed, even if it felt everything had. Some things were true, even in these woods where everything felt false.

The screeching screaming surrounded the girls, echoed off every tree and every rock in the forest, howling anger and despair.

Mina went to the front, her sword drawn, her eyes sharper than its blade, but the wailing only grew higher and more frenetic as raised it high, and then the screech became a cackle, a high laugh, and Usagi clung to Rei, gripping her tightly, and Rei thought she might pop from either the squeeze, or the frustration of the silence in her head.

“Come and get it, motherfucker!” Haruka howled into the dark green of the forest. “Come on!”

A dark wing darted out of the darkness like a hawk, keening that banshee wail to everything that had died, and it came too quickly, knocking Haruka to the ground. Michiru rushed forward, dagger drawn and by her side, as the screaming grew into one large wail of hatred.

She moved to touch Haruka’s shoulder, but Haruka pulled away.

“I don’t want your fucking help!”

The creature screamed again.

“I–” She folded her hands neatly into her lap.

Haruka got up, dusting herself off. “Just do your goddamn job Michiru. I’m not yours anymore.”

She flinched at that, at the way Haruka spat it, and the scream faded into the distance.

Usagi’s small voice came from behind Michiru. “Haruka…don’t–”

Haruka threw her hands up. “No!”

Usagi did not let go of Rei, just buried her face into she shoulder and began to sniffle.

Rei patted her hand. “It’s over, Usagi. It’s over now.”

Mina put her sword back in her sheath. “Mako, Rei, Ami. You three stay in camp with Usagi. Hotaru, Pluto, Haruka. You three are going to head due east.” She looked at Michiru, who slowly rose to her feet. “Me and Neptune are going to head west. We have to sweep the forest, we can’t just wait for whatever this thing is to keep attacking us.”

_Why west, and why Michiru?_

**Because only you can handle her. She is dangerous. Only you can protect the others.**

_Yes._

“Yes.” Michiru walked toward her. “Let’s.”

The ribbon, the rope, and the chain, twisted it way around them, and dragged them into the west.

__

The forest went ever on, and seemed to be the same in all directions, lacking even the game trails of the animals who must pass through these woods, and yet there was only silence, only silence and the whispers that seemed to come from within and without, reminding them of all the suffering that had been brought to bear, and all the possibilities that had laid in these woods.

Mina had kept Michiru a few feet in front of her, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

_She would do it, if you dropped your guard. You have no idea what she’s capable of._

**I know.**

Michiru attached little importance to Mina’s marching behind her. She was so accustomed to it by now that it seemed boring, just another day when no one trusted her or loved her, another day alone even surrounded. Her senshi life was now just as her life had been before. No friends to laugh with–the senshi all returned her gifts now, even for occasions–just a string of lonely cups of tea in cafes, no Haruka sitting across from her.

_You told them what you were. It’s as if they don’t know the scorpion and the frog._

**That’s as may be, but the scorpion still did the stinging.**

_You are what you are, and can be adored for it, my dar–_

“I wish you had killed me, if it’s any consolation.” Michiru picked her way through the trees, following the ribbon in front of her, pulling her onwards. “I did not ask to be condemned to this half of a life.”

Mina shrugged. “Well, Usagi wouldn’t let me.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?” Michiru continued, “That it would not be so painful, or so so difficult. My life before Haruka, before I met all of you, certainly did not plunge me into the depths of despair.”

**Poor her, in her penthouse with her servants. What a miserable life that must have been.**

Mina looked behind her, whipping around quickly.

“What was it?” Michiru stopped.

“Nothing” Mina trudged forward, ignoring the voice that was her but was not her but was her, all braided together in a terrible rope.

“You would think,” Michiru was not dissuaded, “But you would be wrong. Once a creature has seen the sun, it is it a new pain to be driven back under the ground.“

**_Such excuses._ **

Mine whirled around the front of her, transforming as she did so.

“Do you want me to feel sorry for you?”

**_Yes, the poor little rich girl._ **

_They were surrounded, the enemies nearly a blur in front of them, as Mina called to her forces._

_“Mercury! To the right! Jupiter, Uranus, I need you two blowing through over there!” She turned. “Neptune, Mars, you have to protect the Princess, they’re everywhere.”_

_They nodded, one on either side of her, Rei’s bow drawn and ready as a_

Deep thunder began to rise from above the forest and a cold wind whipped through the tightly-packed trees.

Michiru huffed dismissively. “You should kill me right here. It is the only thing that will ever be enough for you.”

**_She is not better than you. She is not faster than you. You could show her that much, Michiru._ **

A mist came on the wind, the first staggering drops of the storm coming to life, and Michiru felt the drops on her face.

_She rubbed her lips together. They came on so fast, and Michiru slashed through one’s throat, the blood splattering across the front of her uniform, a bit flecking onto her lips, coloring them as if she were going on a date with Haruka._

_She could hear the sound of Rei’s bow, hear every whistle of the arrows going by, the groan of the enemy as they found their marks, and Michiru smiled. There was something in the graceful ballet of battle where she found herself, where every dark impulse she had ever had was fed and watered._

_Usagi. She looked behind her, and Usagi had tripped._

_“Sailor Moon!” Haruka called desperately, looking to Usagi. “Sailor Moon, you’ve gotta get up!”_

_“Uranus!” Michiru called to her. Her back was to the action. They were coming up behind her._

_Still Haruka looked at Usagi with panic in her eyes, motioning her to get up, watching as she struggled to her feet._

_Michiru grabbed Usagi by the elbow as there was a_

Great crash of thunder overhead, the rain falling harder now, and Michiru matched Mina’s transformation, nose to nose now in the dimming light of the clouds.

“I should! I should so you can’t kill us all!”

**_My blade is here, and there are monsters in the forest. No one would know._ **

The wind blew Mina’s hair around her face, like blinders on a horse.

_Like blinders on a horse, that’s how she’d always think of it. It should give her fear, not having much of a peripheral. She’d briefly considered making tying back your hair new uniform requirements._

_But there was something in the way it focused all her attentions on the moment, on the battle, that she found thrilling, that seemed correct, the way it forced her to live at the end of her blade, forced to her to be faster and keener._

_But sometimes, the veil of her hair parted, and she would see snippets of the battle laid out before her. She blocked a blow, and a great groan arose from the creature as she met it with her own, as her hair moved just enough to see the beginning of all their great tragedy._

_Haruka stood, yelling at Usagi, her back to the enemy, like she’d told her not to do a thousand times, like they’d trained against over and over again, but sometimes there was something inside of someone, Mina had noted, that couldn’t be trained out of them, no matter how you tried. It was a thing that refused to break and die._

_Michiru dragged Usagi to her feet, a look of panic on her face, and a deep howl of pain came up from Haruka as one of the creatures dove onto her back, its claws ripping at her side. Mina gave a wide swing of her blade, catching another one in the neck, but she was stopped by another in her path._

_Mako was occupied. Michiru was guarding Usagi._

_There was a low ache in Mina’s heart, as she fought, and again it clawed at her ears, Haruka screaming,_

“I could not watch her die!” Michiru looked almost feral now, rage and sadness and all the other emotions Michiru never let herself have bundled up into one, “I am not strong enough, I cannot bear it!”

**_She’ll never understand you. None of them will. Take the dagger. Take it and join us._ **

Michiru shook her head, and the rain began to pour down straight and hard and cooling their tempers for one moment.

Michiru looked back at Mina.”Please, please,

_“Do not ask this of me.” She said it to her herself, to Sailor Neptune, to the fates and gods she did not believe in. She said it to the creature attacking Haruka, blood coming off her. She said it to Haruka herself._

_She never had a choice, in her entire life. The child who would be socialite, the girl who would be soldier, only in being the woman that would be loved had she ever given her hand freely, and the world laughed its cruel chuckle as she watched her world be taken away from her._

_She looked over to Usagi, and her voice very nearly broke._

_“Forgive me my weakness.”_

_And then she left._

_Michiru ran from Usagi’s side, grabbing her arm as she went, and crashed Usagi like a wave against the enemy, flinging it from Haruka’s back, as Usagi screamed and fell to the ground. It fell upon her, as Michiru grabbed Haruka close, pulling her away from danger. There was a clamor, as senshi yelled and weapons clashed, and in the miracle of it all Mina ran her sword through the enemy that tackled Usagi, as Rei grabbed her and threw her to the ground, covering Usagi’s body with her own._

_Mina looked over at Michiru, a horrified look in her eyes, then horror turned to rage, as she yelled,_

“Michiru, you were supposed to protect her.” She remembered yelling,but it came out so quiet.

**_She is a traitor and you would be protecting the princess, the senshi, to run her through._ **

“Yes. But I don’t believe that’s why you wished me executed.”  

**_She will never understand you, she does not understand love but only the rule of martial law. You have seen Venus, my sweet._ **

“I made a mistake.”

_Yes, you made a mistake in allowing Usagi to stay your hand._

**No.**

“I told you never to ask this of me.” Her voice was resolute, but there was a shadow of shame behind it, an admission of her own weaknesses.

_The light was soft and soothing as it came through the lace curtain that accented Michiru and Haruka’s dining room, the home they’d just purchased gleaming with the newness of it all. It was strange, she and Mina sitting alone there, Michiru sipping her tea as if it were perfectly natural in her composed, perfect way._

_She looked over at Mina. “Not to overstep, and tell a commander how to do her job,” she set her cup down on its saucer, “Mina, I must tell you something. The subject has been largely avoided these last few years, and I fear it may come to a head someday.”_

_“Quit being cryptic, Squidward.” Mina leaned back in her chair, nibbling on a tea cake._

_She looked directly at Mina. “You must never ask me to choose between Usagi and Haruka. I will only disappoint, and I am not certain the team could bear the strain.”_

_Mina studied her for a moment, seeing only honesty in her face, none of Michiru’s usual glamour and trickery and affect._

_“I  should have,”_

“Known.” Mina looked at her. “I made a mistake.”

They looked at each other, thoughts a perfect echo.

_She–_

**No.**

There was a roar, and a creature sprang toward them, a demon like nothing they had seen or fought, its body blazing with fire, its roar the screams of a thousand in shrieking discordant pain, and they both held their weapons aloft as it came toward them, back to back in perfect concert, ready to strike.

Then it stopped, and laughed a deep low laugh, the rumble of it the falling of cities. The rain seemed not to touch it, a halo about its presence.

“Oh Mina, you poor simple creature,” the voice grew sinuous and smooth, “how could you not know? Oh my, this is a bit shameful for one purported to be so wise in the way of tactics.”

Its skin melted away to reveal a beautiful teal haired socialite, pearls around her neck and fine leather heels at her feet, even here, its laugh like the tinkling of bells.

The figure slid out of its skin in a single elegant step, a cunning smile on its lips as it stepped toward Michiru, the reds and purples and oranges of the devil it had been replaced by an unfailingly more terrifying creature.

It smiled at her, its golden hair falling in soft cascades about its shoulders, its pink lips still drawn into that smile, that glorious, inhuman smile.

It laughed. “You can’t be that surprised.How else was I supposed to get you?”

“The fuck–” Mina stared hard at it, as it flipped its hair flawlessly.

“How–” Michiru tried to see past it, tried to see anything but the smug commander in front of her.

It looked to Mina, smiling a close-mouthed smile. “It’s really quite simple, if you came to think on it. I have always had a certain sort of power, and these woods, well, they amplified it quite nicely,” It looked back to Michiru, “Come on, Hentai Queen, you know I’ll do anything for the job. Little selling my soul never hurt anyone,” It stepped toward Mina, “And who else, do you think, could quiet Rei’s hearing? Her seeing? The call, as they say, is coming from inside the house,” It smirked at Michiru, “Good job dragging yourself out here to get killed, maybe I can geet Haruka hooked up with a new girlfriend.”

Michiru stood a little straighter. “This cannot be.”

The creature whirled around again, growing several inches and looking back at Michiru with soft grey eyes filled with love. “Babe, it’ll be so easy for us to be together again. You just gotta do this one thing. You’d do anything for me, right?”

“You utter bastard.” Her voice shook.

It looked back to Mina, its teal hair growing long and gold, tears appearing on its face. “Mina!” It sniffled, “Michiru tried to kill me! Can’t you protect me? Please! You have to fight her!”

“Heh.” Mina gave a low laugh, “That’s where you fucked up, friend,” Mina took a swing at it, and it rocketed back , becoming a jumble of faces and voices, “Usagi would never have me hurt Michiru. Or literally anyone.”

“An excellent attempt, however,” Michiru moved quickly, circling behind it, “But we know the devil, you see.”

It changed again, sword in its hand, and clashed with Mina, blue eyes staring into blue eyes, gold hair nearly braiding with each other. “You know what you are, Venus, and what you can become. You know what’s inside of you, you just need to let it out. Think of the power.”

Mina felt a shiver go through her, and she hesitated, just a moment.

It pushed Mina off, throwing her to the ground and whirled toward Michiru, crossing her blade, meeting in close, elegant combat.

“My dear, you are well aware of all the things you desire,” its hair was perfect and soft and dry, “things that this world has not allowed you to have. And yet it is not impossible, the things you desire, the girl you desire, I have seen your darkest moment, and we can help you. We can create a world together.”

Michiru gave a giggle. “I’m sorry, but this is terribly amusing,” She flipped her hair, ignoring its heavy wet, “you see, this is the devil I know best of all.”

She stabbed at it, and narrowly she missed, too narrow, anticipating its movements, and for once, Michiru thought, she might be projecting a thought into it. 

It looked frightened, for a moment there, the creature being seen, seen as perhaps no other human being could have seen it, and it released from her, and whirled back to where Mina was still getting off the ground, and in a moment it was on top of her, Mina without even a second to react. This was it. She’d die to a devil in the forest, without anyone to back her.

_“She’ll turn on us in a fucking second.” Mina spat the words to Rei, sitting across from her at the shrine, just the two of them and the fire, warming and burning._

_Rei looked into the fire, but didn’t respond, simply stirred her tea and took a breath._

_“She tried to kill Usagi.”_

_“I know!” Rei snapped at her, annoyed and hurt. She looked back into the fire, and it crackled and popped and Mina begged to hear the words that it might be saying. “She tried to save Haruka…”_

_“It’s the same thing.” She looked into the fire, as if she could hear it too, as if it was enough to pretend. “She’s always wanted to kill us.”_

_Rei looked back at her, her lips moving but no words coming from them._  

 But it did not touch her. It was dragged from her in an instant, and Mina got to her feet as it and Michiru struggled, a high scream coming from one or the other or both of them, Mina could not say, and she leapt into the battle, sword high in hand, and they clashed together against it, a whirl of senshi against whatever cruelty filled these woods, these woods that Mina would not return to until she was older and too much wiser, knowing what she sought, knowing what she could become, when she longed to shift shape, when she longed to become a legend.

 It felt good, and not just in the way the fight always felt good to her, the low angry hungry way her soul felt fed when blood fell upon the field, the way Venus felt inside her. It was Mina who felt good now, Mina who felt a lightness come over her, even with the difficulty of the struggle. It was the joy of throwing off something that no longer served her, the joy of cleaning out a closet full of quiet hurts. 

Michiru was caught up in it, slashed and tossed against a tree. 

 _“That’s not true”_  That’s what Rei’s lips had said. 

Michiru launched back at the creature. “You must go back to camp, warn the others!” 

_“Usagi, you should have let me get rid of Michiru.” Mina’s voice was quiet, and disappointed._

_“I forgive her!” She touched Mina’s arm. “Nobody died.”_

All’s well that ends well, some children’s book might have said. 

_She thought of Usagi, holding Hotaru in her arms, the world letting out a collective breath when they all might have died._

_“It’s fine, Usagi, nobody died.” She had said, that time, as Michiru rolled her eyes._

 Nobody died. 

Mina stopped a moment, and all she could see in her heart was Usagi, begging and pleading for no one to die as the world ticked toward destruction. Usagi, offering up her heart, offering up the world, to save them. 

To save people she loved most of all. 

Michiru was pinned now, her fighting growing weaker, the creature beginning to laugh as it overtook her, and Mina felt its strength rise, her sword raised to it without her even quite knowing why, and she saw Beryl and Nehellenia and Pharoh 90,  and most of all, she saw her own open disdain that she had let grow to hate, that she had tended as surely as any garden.

But it didn’t matter.

Mina had found her mark, and whatever power one believed the Holy Sword to be imbued with, it bloomed here, light slicing through the creature, becoming each of the senshi as it screamed and wriggled and died, until it was nothing but a scattered collection of hair and hands and eyes, lying on the forest floor.

“Gross.” Was all Mina said, standing over it.

Michiru lay just a few feet from her, unmoving.

“If you’re dead after all that, I’m gonna be so fucking pissed, Kaioh.”  ****She stopped. “Please. You can’t be. I–” she knelt next to her. “I’m sorry.”

Michiru gave a very weak mumble. “I can’t do shit with I’m sorry. Go.” 

There was breath in her, there was life, there was still a chance.

 “Too bad, squidward.” She moved her, just a little, but it was enough, and Michiru fainted under the strain and the pain of it. 

 She grabbed Michiru under the armpits, dragging her back toward camp, realizing as she did so that she could barely hear, her eyes felt too sensitive, every part of her body felt filled with exhaustion and ache and yet she still pulled on. She had to get Michiru back. She had to tell them what happened. Suddenly, defending Michiru seemed like the most important thing she had ever done, and it dragged her onward, even when her body wanted to quit, even when she heard the low howl in the woods that told her the devils were never really gone, only beaten back for awhile.

Mina stumbled back into camp, in what have been 20 minutes or might have been 20 hours, the high whine of the battle still ringing in her ears, dropping to her knees as she reached the edge of camp, her face to the ground, but she could still hear the clamor of the girls as they gathered around her.

“She saved me.” Was all Mina managed. “She saved me.”

Michiru opened her eyes, her vision blurred and dull, but she could feel one thing, with perfect clarity.

Haruka was holding her hand.


End file.
